Effects Of Misleading Words On Memory Recall Essay

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Introduction and Theoretical Framework

There has always been great interest amongst researchers in investigating how we construct our memories. Bartlett (1932) believed that people have generalised ideas (that he called schemas) about how events take place, these ideas are then used to put in order and build our memories of certain specific events. Generalised ideas (schemas) however, alter the way we shape our memories by leading us to retain information in such way that fits into our pre-existing perceptions of things (Bartlett, 1932 cited in Passer et al.). In other words, memory construction is dependent upon the way each individual sees the world (Intraub & Gottesman, 2002). Consequently, what happens after an event will certainly affect the formation of how people will remember it. This is called the misinformation effect, where misleading information that happened after the event can damage the memory of what happened in the actual event (Loftus 1974, 1977, 1979 cited in Loftus and Hoffman, 1989). The questions of misinformation started to be frequently raised in the mid-70s, due to inconsistent eyewitness testimonies. Judges and juries are often oblivious of the possible mistakes made by eyewitness testimony, and end up placing unfair penalties that might have deserved further investigation (Woocher, 1977, p. 970 cited in Yuille & Cutshall, 1986).
A study conducted by Tversky & Tuchin (1989, cited in Passer et al., 2008) was based on a real life event where a priest was identified by several eyewitnesses as guilty of a series of robberies in Washington, US. The priest was released when the real robber admitted to the crimes. With no physical resemblance between both men, Tversky & Tuchin argue that the way in which the police handled the case might have affected the way the witnesses took in the information about the suspect; they were told that the suspect might be a priest and that he had a polite manner. These post-event information...